


The Bridge From You To Me

by ratbandaid



Series: sylvix week 2020!! [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Reincarnation, War, black eagle!sylvain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratbandaid/pseuds/ratbandaid
Summary: Felix has been reincarnated over and over and over through the years, waiting for his chance to make things right with Sylvain and to confess his love for him after their death at the battle of Arianrhod.But Sylvain hasn't shown up at all.Felix's patience is growing thin.-----Sylvix Week Day Six: Second Chances | Confessions |Reincarnation AU
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: sylvix week 2020!! [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932814
Comments: 9
Kudos: 75
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	The Bridge From You To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Bridges" by Courage My Love and also the following Reincarnation AU prompt: "I skipped like four cycles of reincarnation and I know you're pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes, but it wasn't my fault please please will you take me back"

People say that Felix builds damn near impenetrable walls around himself. They’re wrong. The walls themselves _are_ completely impenetrable. It’s just that there are several drawbridges he’s created, only able to be opened from within and able to be shut in an instant in case of emergencies. He leaves a small bridge down for important people, giving them a chance to cross and come in and truly understand him. For people like Ingrid and Dimitri.

And Sylvain.

But Sylvain’s bridge hasn’t been used in years. Centuries, really. The last time Sylvain’s so much as even stood near that bridge was at the battle of Arianrhod, when Sylvain had showed up with the Black Eagles to fight on the opposite side of Felix.

Seeing Sylvain there, after five long years while Felix was fighting off Adrestian forces, really hurt. He had known that that twisted, terrible professor convinced Sylvain to join the Black Eagles back in the academy, tearing Felix away from one of the only people who truly understood him, but he had never anticipated that Sylvain would side with the Adrestians when war broke out. In the first year of the war, Sylvain had tried to reason with him over letters, trying to ask Felix to join their cause to stop the world’s dependence on Crests, but Felix couldn’t bear to see that betrayal.

How could he have grown up with Sylvain and how could Sylvain turn his back against the people who loved him and cared for him throughout his life? Felix understood his hatred for the Crest he bore—he understood every damn intricacy of this hatred, and he had been there to witness Sylvain’s torment throughout their childhood—but he couldn’t bear to follow in Sylvain’s footsteps. Felix had a duty to his country—to his fallen brother, to his father’s expectations, to his friend and the king, Dimitri.

He had cut contact with Sylvain immediately.

But even then, his bridge for Sylvain remained down, desperately wishing that Sylvain would take the hint and come to his senses. That Sylvain would cross the bridge and realize why Felix is so hellbent on having him return to Faerghus—because Felix loved him.

Sylvain never crossed that bridge. He stood there at the foot of the bridge, staring at Felix from afar with a hurt expression, and he turned away.

“Hey, Felix? Remember when we were kids and we made a promise about dying together?” Sylvain had asked over the chaos of the battle at Arianrhod. A wry smile graced his face, his grip on his lance faltering.

“I remember,” Felix had replied, stone-cold despite the burning yearning for Sylvain in his chest. It felt like his love for Sylvain and his love for his country were tearing him apart from the inside. But he kept on a deadpan expression, tightening his grip on his sword.

“Well, seems we’re about to kill each other.” His voice was gravelly, rough. It was as if he couldn’t believe it was happening either. Felix doubted Sylvain was in as much pain as Felix was.

Felix heaved a sigh. He tries to school his expression into one of indifference, but he can’t help the way his eyebrows twist upwards, how his lips are pulled into a frown. “Sorry, Sylvain. You’ll die first.”

Sylvain had shut his eyes, that pitiful smile still on his face.

Then the battle began. Sylvain had reared back on his horse and charged at Felix. Felix had dodged the first strike of Sylvain’s lance, aimed right for his heart, and he managed to just barely dodge the second swing. Sylvain’s attacks were sloppy, sluggish, hesitant—but Felix’s were too.

It was a bastardized dance, one that Felix wished had more positive feelings associated with it. Felix strikes and jumps back to dodges Sylvain’s massive swing; Sylvain pulls back and blocks Felix’s attack with his lance. A back-and-forth between them, like they’d always practiced since they were children to when they were in Garreg Mach together to now. Felix knew Sylvain’s weak spots well, but Sylvain knew his too.

It was an exhausting fight. Felix, even with his powerful Sword of Zoltan and his Crest activating, had been a disadvantage to begin with. In a match of swords against lances, the lances almost always won due to their sheer reach. And top that with the fact that Sylvain had been riding a horse—Felix was destined to lose. But that didn’t mean Felix would give up.

He fought until he couldn’t stand, until he knocked Sylvain off his horse, until he and Sylvain fought on-foot. But he could only do so much.

Felix let out a guttural cry as Sylvain sunk the Lance of Ruin into Felix’s torso. In his last attempt to do what he must, Felix ran Sylvain through with his sword. The sound Sylvain made was heartbreaking. The look he gave Felix was even worse.

“I failed,” Felix gasped out as he collapsed to the ground. His vision slowly petered out, darkening and darkening. “Can’t see… anything,” he huffs. He didn’t want to speak any more. His body ached too much.

Felix heard his father call his name. He wondered if he lived up to Glenn’s image. Up to how his father wished him to be.

Sylvain fell beside him, shutting his eyes tightly and grimacing when he coughed. Felix heard little specks of blood fly from his mouth and land on the cobblestone between them.

“Heh. I’m not afraid,” Sylvain said quietly. “I figured it would end like this.”

But strangely enough, there was a smile to his words. Probably that same, pained, wry smile though Felix had no doubt in his mind that Sylvain’s eyes looked so _free_ then.

“Felix,” Sylvain had whispered, and Felix clung to that voice as his consciousness faded away. His voice had wavered, had barely been audible as he broke into another coughing fit that his voice raspier and shakier than before. “Felix.”

The last thing Felix remembered before he died was Sylvain’s weakly placing his gloved hand over Felix’s, their fingers just barely touching.

-

Felix waited for Sylvain. He waited and waited and waited.

All he wanted was a chance to set things right with Sylvain, to tell Sylvain that even though they were on opposite sides of the war that Felix still loved him, to tell Sylvain that Felix had always loved him and always will. He wants to let that drawbridge down and let Sylvain again.

Not long after his death at Arianrhod, Felix was reincarnated. He was a happy child, but he always asked his parents about a boy named Sylvain, asking them if he could play with him. They simply thought he had an imaginary friend and thought nothing of it, even when Felix cried and threw fits that he wasn’t with this “Sylvain” person.

His parents wouldn’t have to put up with it for long. The arrival of the Black Death in Felix’s hometown decimated everyone living there, including Felix, only aged seven.

Then, a century later, he was reincarnated into a prolific writer. His family and friends said he was a boy lost in his thoughts, but they wouldn’t know that the stories he thought of were what had happened to him in one of his past lives. He wrote constantly about a war, about “Crests,” of a merciless Goddess.

And in every story, there was an angry raven-haired man and a handsome redhead with soft brown eyes and a knowing smile. Their story always ended in tragedy and heartbreak, in betrayal and confusion and _pain_. He hoped that someone out there would recognize his story as fact, hoped that Sylvain would be out there reading his stories.

Felix promised himself that he would meet Sylvain again, if it was the last thing that he ever did, so they could make amends and so he let down that bridge once again. He died at age sixty-three, never having seen the redhead he dreamt of, the one he wrote about so feverishly.

He was reincarnated into a musician maybe two hundred years later. All that he ever composed was angry and hurt. Not a single song seemed to be happy—but there were a few songs written as love songs, it seemed. His songs were quick-paced and chaotic and loud, like the clashing of swords on a battle. His songs were slow and reverential and soft, like the moments before one’s soul left their body as they passed. His love songs were never finished, abruptly cutting off.

He lived a long and lonely life, dying in his home at age eighty, surrounded by cats and half-finished sheet music, wrinkled up and thrown aside in frustration. A few letters had been written too, but Felix seemed to have burned those before his death.

When historians found Felix’s file of music, buried under books and clothes as if he had been embarrassed about it, they found that every song he had ever written had been all filed away in a folder with the name, _Sylvain_ , simply written on it. They were never sure of who Sylvain was, but they knew that this musician simply bore some kind of strong feelings for him.

Speculations arose that maybe Sylvain and Felix were lovers, but no one could find records of a man named Sylvain alive in Felix’s area during that time.

-

Here is Felix now in the 21st century, age twenty-three and tired of being reincarnated. Felix is tired of waiting patiently for Sylvain. He’s tired of waiting to find Sylvain, of waiting for Sylvain to come find him. He’s tired of harboring these painful memories and feelings.

Really, after three cycles of reincarnation without Sylvain, Felix thinks that he’s damned to be loveless. There’s a chance that Sylvain simply isn’t in the cycle of reincarnation anymore, and that Felix’s efforts have all been for naught. That hurts to think about—that he spent almost over 150 years alive, waiting for Sylvain only for Sylvain to simply _not exist_ anymore.

At this point, Felix isn’t sad. He’s just pissed off. Why should he live his live on repeat, pursuing one person who isn’t there anymore?

Felix lets out a frustrated huff as he walks down the aisles of the grocery store, pushing along his annoyingly squeaky cart—the kind where one of the wheels wobbles back-and-forth as it rolls along.

He doesn’t care about ‘Sylvain.’ This is stupid. So stupid. He’s probably just got an overactive imagination. Maybe reincarnation isn’t real, and he’s just been having really, _really_ vivid dreams that happen to align with the things that are taught in history classes and English classes and music history classes. He’s probably just easily influenced.

Felix stops in the snack aisle and reaching for the last family-sized bag of Hot Cheetos. Felix is frustrated, and he plans on getting drunk by himself tonight with a good, salty snack to munch on, even if he’s going to hate himself the day after for ruining his diet.

He finds another hand reaching for it too and stops. He turns to the person who’s reaching for it too, almost instinctively.

Felix’s eyes widen when he realizes that he’s staring at Sylvain Jose Gautier, finally standing before him after almost a thousand years of human history. Sylvain looks just as shocked as Felix is, recognition settling in their eyes immediately.

No fucking way.

Sylvain pulls an earbud out of his ear, the bass bumping loudly on the earbud. “Felix?” he says gingerly. “That’s you, right?”

Felix doesn’t move for a bit. Then he grabs the bag, dumps it in his cart, and tries to storm off. There is no conceivable way to make storming off with a grocery cart cool or impactful, especially when the wheels squeak and the cart doesn’t turn when he wants it to.

Sylvain grabs his shoulder. “Felix, don’t just leave like that!” He laughs. “You can have the bag! I don’t care! I just—I haven’t seen you in so long!” He pulls Felix in for a hug, and Felix melts a little at it. Had he been less angry, Felix probably would have started crying at finally having met Sylvain, at finally feeling Sylvain’s arms around him.

But he’s pissed off. And that’s an absolute understatement.

Felix wriggles out of the hug, whips around, and glares at him. “Where have you _been_?” he asks, unable to keep the venom out of his voice. He doesn’t care that people are staring, that he’s arguing with someone he’s only known in this lifetime for a minute or so in a fucking grocery store.

 _I waited for you_ , he thinks bitterly. It’s in that second that he feels every year of loneliness and sadness and _yearning_ from his past lives slowly weighing down on him. He remembers all the nights he’s spent wishing that Sylvain was there with him, all the days he’s spent thinking about Sylvain and trying to reach out to people who might recognize him. _I waited so fucking long._

Sylvain winces. “Okay, listen,” he says, “I can see why you’re upset with me, Felix. I skipped, like, four cycles of reincarnation, and I know you’re pissed at me for leaving you all those lifetimes, but it wasn’t my fault. Please, you have to understand.”

Felix shuts his eyes tightly. He feels a migraine coming on. “Whose fucking fault was it then?” Felix knows the answer, but he refuses to admit that.

“You know. God or whatever’s controlling it. I swear, I did all that I could to be brought back, but there’s only so much I can do when I’m literally just a bodiless ball of spirit.” The look he gives Felix is a straight punch to his heart. Even after all this time, Sylvain’s pitiful pouty face is the same as it was back in Fodlan. "Don't be upset with me. I swear I wanted to come back. And see you."

 _See me?_ a part of Felix wants to say, fuming. _After you turned your back to all of Faerghus and me?_

But he really isn’t mad about that anymore. He’s lost his frustration over that sometime during the war, maybe before he died or maybe even before that. He had realized that it was simply Sylvain’s belief and experiences, his trauma around that Crest he bore—and that he agreed with it a little too. It was just that at the time, Felix had been too preoccupied with behaving in accordance to what people expected of him and what he expected of himself.

Had he been in that same war right now, Felix would have joined Sylvain in a heartbeat.

They’re not in a war anymore, though. There are no more dragons or Crests or magic spells. They’re in a better time. A lamer time that lacks dragons, swords, and magic, but a better time.

“Well, you’re here now,” Felix says with a small sigh, turning back to his cart.

“I am,” Sylvain agrees, walking around so that he’s beside Felix.

Felix tightens his grip on his shopping cart. He takes a small shaky breath in. “So don’t go anywhere without me again.” He isn’t really saying what he wants to, but Sylvain’s always known him best. He knows what Felix means. He’s always known.

“I could say that to you too, you know.” Sylvain smiles sadly. “You died before I did. By a few minutes, but I missed you as soon as you left. And I’ve missed you since.” He laughs a little. "But trust me. After reading your writing and listening to what you made for me, I'm not planning on ever leaving your side again."

Felix's walls have come crashing catastrophically down, and all that's left is really a bridge connecting his heart to Sylvain's, both of them meeting in the middle to finally, _finally_ catch up and get to experience a normal, happy love.

When Sylvain hugs him again, he lets himself melt against Sylvain's warm, firm body, finally happy to get to see his best friend and the love of his life again after around 800 years. He melts and all his frustration and sadness and loneliness melts away from him, leaving behind a mess of years' worth of pining and love.

If Felix sheds a few tears in the middle of that grocery store while shopping for shitty junk food to go along with some beer, well, that's no one's business.


End file.
